Translating Follows to Footfall: Making Social Work in the Real World

A decade ago, the rise of ecommerce sparked predictions that physical stores would soon be relics of the past. But, the digital revolution didn’t fully factor in this fundamental truth - shopping is more than just a transaction; it's a human experience, where discovery meets delight and browsing becomes an act of self-expression.

Gen Z and Gen Alpha are leading the charge back into stores, with 69% of these digital natives saying they prefer shopping in person, seeking spaces that exist beyond the algorithmic confines of their Feeds. This is not a rejection of technology; it’s merely a brief respite from it.

This resurgence of in-store shopping presents an opportunity for brands. But it also brings a challenge: how to use digital and social campaigns to turn online buzz into real-world footfall. More pertinently – how to measure success, when metrics aren’t tied to e-commerce conversions?

Clicks to bricks: Gen Z and Gen Alpha return to stores 

Forget the stereotype of Gen Z glued to their phones, endlessly scrolling through TikTok. Yes, they’re online, but they’re also hitting the stores in droves. In fact, according to You Gov, 34% of Britons aged 18-24 shop online and offline evenly. And brands are starting to capitalise.

Take the recent Sol de Janeiro pop-up in New York. The Instagrammable experience drew 18,000 attendees in 10 days, with people waiting for hours just to get inside. The key takeaway? After years of virtual experiences, this generation craves the tactile, the social, the immersive. They want to touch, try and take home. They want to feel connected to the world around them.

The real feat of Sol de Janeiro’s pop-up is how they leveraged social media to build hype before, during and after the event. 

• The pop-up was teased across social media, with influencers stirring excitement
• They drove urgency by sharing sneak peeks of limited-edition product launches
• They maximised social word-of-mouth by offering Instagrammable moments like photo booths, personalised merchandise and free samples
• Influencers were on-site, sharing live updates and encouraging attendees to post

Post-pop-up, Sol de Janeiro maintained momentum by showcasing user-generated content (UGC) from visitors, reposting videos and highlighting key moments from the event across their social media channels.

This integrated approach kept the brand top-of-mind and turned online engagement into real-world participation. But as more brands tap into this offline potential, many are getting stumped by the same question: How can they measure the success of such a campaign?

Measuring success goes beyond clicks

For ecommerce retailers, success metrics are easy: clicks, conversions and sales. For brick-and-mortar stores, it’s more complex. You can’t slap a UTM code on a physical store visit. But that doesn’t mean you can’t measure success; it just requires a shift in thinking.

Consider Gymshark, the UK-born fitness brand. It built its empire online, but now it is opening physical stores to provide the Gymshark community with a hands-on experience. But how does it measure success without the direct online conversion? 

• Footfall tracking: Platforms like TikTok are innovating new ways to track in-store sales based on their platform ads
• Community growth: Measure changes in follower count – and look for links between growth trends and store events
• Social engagement: How many people talk about the store visit and what they were saying about it via hashtags, mentions and shares 
• Purchase behaviour: Are there visible correlations between high-performing social media posts and subsequent sales metrics?

Metrics like awareness, engagement, sentiment and community growth provide a clearer picture of how successful a digital campaign is in bridging the gap between online and on-ground.

The rise of hyper-personalisation and localisation

One-size-fits-all marketing is dead, and nowhere is this more apparent than in retail. Today’s consumers want to feel seen, heard and catered to. That’s why brands are leaning into hyper-personalised, localised content, whether online or offline.

Take M&S Romford’s TikTok page, which has outperformed the national brand account by miles. It shows the staff putting their own spin on trends, having fun and, crucially, engaging with M&S’s specific audience in an authentic way. That goes a long way in showing that the brand is more than just a logo – it’s also a group of people who like to have a laugh. Online engagement turns into real-world salience.

Localised digital campaigns are essential for brick-and-mortar brands looking to drive in-store footfall. To check their performance, location-specific social data and sentiment analysis are useful in tracking how many local users are engaging with your content and how they’re reacting to it.

The democratisation of influence: Why it matters

Influence used to be reserved for celebrities, media editors and industry gatekeepers; but somewhere between hashtags and virality, power shifted. Today, cultural influence can spring from anyone with an Internet connection and something to say.

For retailers, this means two things: 1) Don’t snub micro-influencers, and 2) Your customers are your best advocates.

Primark is an excellent example of this. Its affordable, trend-led fashion lends itself perfectly to customer-generated content (CGC). Shoppers love showing off their ‘hauls’ on social, posting their outfits and tagging the brand in conversations. All of this translates into more foot traffic – and that’s partly why Primark boasts more in-store visits than any other brand in Britain, with 37% of Britons shopping there, per YouGov.

It doesn’t matter that Primark doesn’t have an ecommerce store beyond click-and-collect; the online, customer-generated hype around its products is enough to drive people to the high street. 

Here’s how retailers can leverage this new wave of influence:

• UGC campaigns: Encourage customers to share their in-store experiences, making sure to conduct a sentiment analysis of these posts
• Micro-influencer partnerships: Use local influencers to promote store visits and events and track the engagement rates of these posts. Also keep a close eye on store visits to see if the campaign led to an uptick
• Engage with customer content: Share, comment and amplify your community, turning Frequently Asked Questions into Frequently Offered Answers

Go beyond the sale - create an experience

If social media is the new mode of entertainment, then retail brands need to start thinking like entertainers. Product shots must co-exist with storytelling – crafted by both, the brand and its advocates.

This is what Sol de Janeiro did so well. The pop-up offered a variety of activities, including giveaways, free beverages and even lymphatic drainage protocol. So when it came to marketing the event, it wasn’t product pushing - it was experiential. And thousands of people queued for hours just to be a part of that real life experience. 

This kind of co-creation, where brands build their image together with their customers, is what sets successful digital campaigns apart from others. Consumers today, especially Gen Z and Gen Alpha, want a partnership that offers value, entertainment and experience.

The message is clear: retail is no longer just about selling a product. It’s about crafting a distinctive, ownable cultural currency.

Success that transcends the click

Clicks and conversions tell half the story; but in retail's physical renaissance, it's engagement and community that boost footfall. While social media remains vital for brand visibility, success lies in translating online inspiration to in-store exploration.